In the evening, after a simple dinner, William still could not rest, he had to be busy with the government affairs accumulated since he patrolled the territory in the past few days.

By candlelight, William picked up a paper book and read it, which was a compilation of census data and land surveys throughout the Principality, which had just been counted this year. The purpose was to understand the estates of the king's fields and the king's immediate vassals, so as to collect taxes, strengthen financial management, and determine the feudal obligations of the vassals.

William's right hand stroked the yellow paper produced from the bark of the newly built paper mill last year, asked about the fragrance of the trees on the yellow paper, and looked at the detailed data on the book, William's mood became extremely happy.

Since William used bark to make paper last year and built a paper mill, the whole Duchy of Normandy, including William, has said goodbye to the smelly kraft paper and greasy parchment, and its cheap and portable advantages have made people quickly accept this yellow paper with the scent of trees.

The inexpensive wood-scented yellow paper was an instant hit, becoming the fourth major product after armour, salt, and cotton and linen, and appeared on the desks of nobles and monastic monks in France, England, Iberia, Italy, and the Holy Roman Empire through the vast sales channels of the Normandy consortium.

There is no doubt that there is no limit to the demand for paper among these people, and although these cheap papers are no longer cheap after the profiteers have increased their prices, they still find it more affordable to use yellow paper than parchment.

In the autumn of 1037 of the previous year, William ordered Baron Adolphus to conduct an extensive land survey and population survey of the whole territory of Normandy, dividing the country into five counties, each consisting of a number of regions, according to the system of counties, regions, counties, and townships.

The survey includes the local population and the ownership of the estate, the size of each estate, the number of tools and livestock, the number of farmers of various types, the area of grassland, pastures, forests, fish ponds, and the value of the property.

Eventually, after more than a year of efforts by William, Baron Adolphus and others, the results of the investigation were compiled into a book, which William would use as a basis for collecting taxes in peacetime and conscripting soldiers in wartime.

Of course, William's move was undoubtedly resisted by the nobles, both old and new, who dubbed the book the Doomsday Book to express their appreciation of William's investigation of the aristocratic estate.

The population of the entire Duchy of Normandy, including the newly conquered county of Enman, had reached 890,000, and the young population had reached 250,000, of whom more than 85% were peasants. The most populous of these is the county of Evreux, with a population of 250,000 and more than 80,000 young men.

The most important factor in the fact that the county of Évreux had such a large population was of course the labor force absorbed by the factories built by William in Vernon-sur-Seine in Fort Vernon-sur-Seine, the steel mills, the arsenals and the machine factories alone absorbed no less than 5,000 people, and their families exceeded 30,000, making them the largest group of workers in the whole of Normandy.

The second most populous county of Rouen is the capital of Normandy, which is the political and economic center of Normandy, with a population of 210,000, mainly agricultural, despite its wars.

The other three newly conquered counties will have a population of 170,000 in the counties of Mortan, 150,000 in the counties of Enman, and 110,000 in the counties of Erburg, which will have the same population as the populations of Evre, the core of Normandy, but far less than the number of young people.

Perhaps it was the effects of the war, the two wars that broke out in Normandy last year were in the counties of Mortan and Enman, respectively, and the death and wounding of a large number of soldiers and ordinary people greatly reduced the population and young people in these two places, and a year and a half later, but the wounds caused by the war have not been healed.

William set his sights on the manor estate statistics, which were divided into royal lands, vassals, knights, merchants, gentlemen, and freemen.

Among them, William occupied the most royal land and the land of the vassal nobles, accounting for more than 90% of the total amount of arable land, the church estate accounted for 6 percent, the rich merchants and gentlemen accounted for 3.2 percent, and the free peasants only accounted for less than 0.8 percent, it can be said that the feudal system reached a peak in the Duchy of Normandy, almost all the arable land was controlled by William and his vassals, and the proportion of arable land in the church estate was reduced to single digits after William confiscated a large number of them.

More than 1.5 million acres of cultivated land in the Duchy of Normandy were directly owned by William, and the remaining 600 acres were divided among William's vassals and knights.

This survey book, known to the aristocracy as the Book of the Last Judgment, details the various types of peasants in each nobleman's estate, as well as the area of pastures, pastures, forests, and fish ponds, and the value of the estate.

Many nobles have nothing to hide in front of William's "Doomsday Judgment", and their own property is completely exposed in front of William's eyes, which is also the reason why the nobles strongly resist the investigation, like the Celestial Empire, the officials also resisted the public power of property, and it was their most desirable thing to be able to transfer money abroad without being regulated.

However, no matter how hard the nobles worked, in the face of the fierce investigators sent by William, the investigation was extremely detailed, so that the people under investigation were walking on thin ice, as if they were receiving the last judgment of God's messenger, and they had no power to fight back, unless they decided to raise an army against William's rule, but this was impossible, and now William's rule was extremely strong, and the army in his hands was enough to exterminate all the nobles in Normandy.

The name "Book of the Last Judgment" means that the circumstances it records are undeniable, just like the Last Judgment.

After drawing some annotations on this "Book of the Last Judgment" with a quill pen, William exhaled lightly, closed the book and sighed: "The population is still too small, the area of the Duchy of Normandy is equivalent to half of Zhejiang Province, and the population is less than 900,000, which is not even as good as a county-level city in later generations."

With a population of 890,000 and 250,000 young and strong, it is already the limit to be able to explode 40,000 troops, and in the face of possible future wars, this number of troops is far from enough. ”